Monday, March 12, 2012

A Double Dose of Sweetwater

Beautiful weather at Sweetwater in March?! I'd never seen it in the forecast before, so I had to check it out. Jesse came with me on Saturday, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Then the same type of day was forecast for Sunday so I took the family back out. Sunday started nice, but got windy and cold pretty quick. We toughed it out, and got a workout. Ashley made the third ascent of "Gimme Three Steps" and the second of "Davy Jones" which you will see below. We spent the rest of the afternoon at a sheltered project we've named the "True Grit" project. It will be an enduro V7 for me, but requires Ashley to do moves that are probably V9 since she can't skip the bad holds. It's still a project, but hopefully it won't be for long. I'll post photos once it's been done.

On Saturday, the weather was incredible. Cool, sunny, and air so still the enormous landscape was silent. Jesse wanted to show me some new projects, but snow and mud forced us to turn the van around. Luckily we had a good back up option. Plenty of lines have already been scoped at the God Eye area. Before we hiked to them though, we warmed up and both repeated "God Eye." Jesse likes tall problems, so I made sure to avoid the short lines. We began at a tall line I thought would be V3-6 from a stand start. It ended up being V3 from the sit start, but starting at obvious jugs it's a perfect V1 that climbs just like a Hueco problem. Jesse flashed the sit start and got the first ascent. It's named "Gimme Three Steps" and is an instant classic.Jesse continued his first ascent streak with a V5 he named "Sheep Go To Heaven." It has a committing top out over a marginal landing. Jesse was willing to go for it before I was ready to risk it. After I saw that the top would go, I repeated it without too much trouble, but Jesse deserves props for going for it before knowing exactly how it would go. It's a great addition to the area.

"Sheep Go to Heaven"Just behind "Sheep Go to Heaven" was a line I'd always wanted to try. We were short on time, so instead of hiking to "Norwegian Wood" we jumped on it instead. The boulder isn't tall, but it is nicely overhung with a really interesting hueco feature. I got the first ascent of the line, and it felt V5 to me. The problem is short, but really cool, so I named it "Davy Jones" after the recently deceased member of the Monkees.

"Davy Jones"Shots of "Davy Jones" looking out from the sit start.I'm excited that we were able to get started at Sweetwater so early this season, and hope that the good weather will continue...

It's a little too early to tell for next weekend, but yesterday we had a good day out there. Conditions were a little warm, but a stiff breeze and cloud cover helped. We added a new V6/7 called True Grit. I'll get a post up soon. Occasionally we get a good day in Summer at Sweetwater, usually when it's cool and raining in Lander. I'd love to show you around.